Eric Salter Bites Back - The Rise of
the Disinformation Machine
with contributions by numerous professional airline pilots
cluelessclueless.net 23 April 2005, updated May 2006
Introduction
Since Eric Salter's meteoric rise to universal contempt among numerous 911 researchers in early 2004 there has been sustained controversy over the nature of the WTC impacts which Salter has attributed to Boeing 767’s, an unsubstantiated claim that is in more or less harmony with the US government’s official version of events. In this article we will take a look Salter's questionable position in the 911 Truth movement while examining the tactics he uses to manipulate his readers and his possible motives for doing so. The content of this article is based on Salter's web articles and his public communications with myself and other members of the 911 community.
Speculative Highlights - The Addendum A Debacle
In September 2004 Salter produced his second WTC paper that dealt with the WTC2 impact called "Analysis of Flight 175 'Pod' and related claims". In this paper Salter tried to play down the “pod” and “pipe” by passing them off as optical illusions. There were serious flaws in Salter’s original analysis of the "pipe" and “pod” illusions as one of his readers pointed out shortly after.
"Addendum A - 18 October 2004. A reader has pointed out that United Airlines 767’s have a light grey stripe down the bottom of the fuselage. This raises the possibility that I mistook the stripe for a reflected highlight".
Talk about making the evidence fit the conclusion! You would have thought that Salter might have done some research on the Internet and found pictures of Boeing 767's with the correct United Airlines livery, but he obviously didn’t. Even if we ignore this embarrassing and avoidable technical blunder, Salter’s analysis was always on shaky ground. He failed to take into account the position of the sun and the attitude of the UA175 aircraft that has resulted in his misleading analysis. His original “twin specular highlight” graphic implied two light sources and not one. He assumed that the viewer would be in the correct position to see these "twin specular highlights" and he assumed there would be reflections off the starboard wing fairing and no reflections off the port wing fairing without knowing the shape of these structures or their reflective properties.
I tested the Letsroll911 image that Salter used while I was preparing the then forthcoming article "Ghost Gun UA175". In the example below I’ve used the similar Rob Howard UA175 photograph and compared it along side my own CG model with the same meteorological conditions:
Salter eventually got it
right, but it was only by chance and with some voluntary technical support from
one of his readers. Guesswork is not the same as dedicated research and the
“specular highlights” explanation for the “pod” and “pipes” illusion will not
work on every UA175 image.
Salter developed his “specular highlight” theory using the CNN Best Angle video and the Carmen Taylor digital photograph. For these two images his “specular highlight” analysis was an unmitigated disaster. As always the suns position in the sky, aircraft attitude and camera viewpoint had not been calculated by Salter, so the analysis was always going to be speculative. I calculated that for the CNN Best Angle / Carmen Taylor scenario the camera was not in the correct position to receive any “specular reflections” as demonstrated by the graphic below:
After doing the
calculations I tested my theory using CG modelling and my results were
confirmed. There were no specular reflections visible on either the CNN video
or the Carmen Taylor photograph.
Salter’s analysis was more
“speculative” than “specular”.
The Addendum A Debacle just one example of Salter’s incompetence and it shows us how he wants to fit his cherry-picked evidence to his ill-founded and baseless pre-conceptions. I don’t think Salter ever had any intention of offering the 911 community some serious research, instead opting to ram his assumptions and deliberate disinformation down the reader’s throat. With Salter’s epic low quality workmanship being held up like a trophy on 911 disinformation sites like www.911review.com you have to wonder what he’s trying to achieve with this kind of illogical tripe.
Meet Eric Salter’s Flunkies – Side Show Hungerford and Captain Rolf Omholt
For some reason Salter has chosen to associate himself with a “pod sceptic” called Mark Hungerford and an airline pilot called Rolf Omholt.
Salter attaches a link to Hungerford's “tongue-in-cheek” website on his "Analysis of the Flight 175 Pod" paper. Judging from the colour scheme and grammar used in Hungerford's paper I'd imagine he was on ecstasy at the time of writing. Hungerford kicks of with the following:
"I have convinced myself that most of what we see in the pics are just illusions born of an ignorance of light and shadow..."
And,
"A combination of assumptions regarding the sun's angle as well a simple illusion have created the pod, in my opinion..."
Yes indeed, ignorance born
of light and shadow. Hungerford goes on to remark on the need for computer
modelling and then fails to deliver this all important computer modelling,
basing his visual analysis purely on guesswork without calculating the all
important 41 degree bank angle of the UA175 aircraft, the 27 degree sun
elevation and its bearing 21 degrees forward of the aircrafts lateral axis and
finally the camera viewing angle. He then goes on to analyse a collection of
fake UA175 images and unsurprisingly concludes that the "pod" is an
illusion.
What impressed me most about Hungerford’s analysis was that he was able to see very small airframe details, like “landing gear bay door”, in an image that was originally only a very small number of pixels in height and width:
For Hungerford to write such a remedial paper it is quite conceivable that he
is genetically related to Salter. They both use the same forcefulness and
arrogance in their writings and they both reach the same false conclusions
based on speculation and guesswork, although Salter’s colour scheme is less
psychedelic than Hungerford's and doesn’t produce as much disorientation. I
think it would be more accurate if Hungerford changed his punch line from
"Turn your brightness WAY UP to see
the details" to "Turn your
IQ WAY DOWN to believe this crap".
The Professional Airline Pilot Captain Rolf Omholt (whose web link appears on the Addendum D section of Salter’s "Analysis of the Flight 175 Pod" paper) has a paper similar to Hungerford’s in that it is poorly presented while sporting a nauseating “sea-sick” coloured dark green background. Having read Omholt’s article he comes over as a first rate 911 researcher. Omholt states in his paper that UA175 was banked at 60 degrees at the moment of impact and therefore the aircraft must have been pulling a 2G (twice the force of gravity) airframe loading. I questioned Omholt about this assertion via e-mail:
"How do you know it pulled 2G?"
Omholt replied:
"Estimating the wing angle to be in the realm of 60 degrees, that equates to a physics standard of 2Gs."
Omholt’s answer appeared to have been copied from a PPL (Private Pilots Licence) training manual. The 2G figure is derived from the 60 degree bank angle and assumes that the aircraft is in balance and in level flight:
As mentioned before, my research indicated a 41 degree bank angle at impact,
while other researchers give figures from 35 degrees to 40 degrees. The
G-loading would be dependent on rudder and elevator authority (in the CNN Best
Angle video all of the control surfaces on the UA175 aircraft seem to be set to
neutral) as well as the bank angle, so technically speaking it would be
possible to pull 2G in a climbing turn banked at 45 degrees or 4G pulling out
of an “Immelman Turn” banked at 180 degrees (inverted flight). This proves my
point that Omholt’s analysis is oversimplified to the point of being incorrect
or misleading. If Omholt’s analysis of the UA175 impact is so obviously flawed
you have to wonder how he has written such a vast and complex paper about other
aspects of the 911 attacks. Perhaps Omholt copied all of his paper from other
911 sites and hired a smurf to do the UA175 section, it might go some way to
explain why the paper looks like a dogs diner and the bank angle assessment was
so wildly inaccurate.
Good 911 researchers are not forged in the crucible of psychedelia, plagiarism, gullibility and incompetence. Salter has not chosen his allies well.
Eric Salter's “Hot-Shot” Aeronautical Analysis - Flex Those Wings!
Salter fancies himself as something of an expert in most fields of research relating to 911. Not only is he an ace video editor he is also an experienced aerodynamicist and at the same time, a crack pilot. Consider the quote below that was extracted from "Physical evidence for ‘Flight 11’ plane substitution: 767 or X-11" which was his belated attempt to take out my “Flight 11” Unveiled - The X-11 Drone" paper.
"The upwards flex of the wings due to aerodynamic lift, which Icke has omitted, would account for the misalignment in the holes created by the wings..."
When I wrote, “Flight 11 Unveiled - The X-11 Drone" I did consider the "upward flexing of the wings" as Salter puts it. I couldn't see any effect of this “wing flexing” in the WTC1 gash. The wing cuts are straight and show no curvature at all. It looks as if all the "flexing" had taken place at the wing root which seems unlikely from a aerodynamic and structural point of view. Having watched the wings on commercial jets "wobble" in turbulence from an onboard position on numerous occasions I can't ever recall seeing all of the wing flexing occurring solely at the wing root, but only that it occurred evenly across the entire wing section and in small amounts that weren’t particularly noticeable. As a trained pilot with a commercial licence (a professional licence) I wouldn't expect the wings to “flex” significantly during any phase of flight unless the aircraft was fully fuelled and flying in turbulence. Unless Boeing have been secretly manufacturing a “Loony Land” variant of the 767-200 that has heavily reinforced hinge mounted wings that alter the dihedral angle selectively in flight depending on airspeed, then Salter's " upward flex of the wings " theory is all a load of "amateurish nonsense" to say the least.
There’s other problem with
Salter’s "try and fit a square peg through a round hole" WTC1 gash
analysis. I calculated the wingspan of the Flight 11 aircraft using photographs
of the WTC1 gash. The wingspan measured 161 feet which is too large for the
Boeing 767-200’s 157 foot span. But consider the following; If we accept Salter's
fluffy and unsubstantiated "wing flexing" argument, then when the
aircraft was at rest the wing span would be relatively greater than it was in
flight because the wings would not have been subject to any aerodynamic forces.
Even when it was in flight the wingspan was to big, so the real wingspan must
have been even bigger than the WTC1 gash is suggesting! But then it’s this kind
of logical thinking that is alien to Salter, so perhaps we can find it in our
hearts to forgive him for making a mistake a 5 year old could easily avoid.
Salter indirectly acknowledges his mistake in his first paper by superimposing a scaled down Boeing 767-200 over the WTC1 gash. His image is reproduced below with my annotation and a red ring to show an area where the fuselage section didn’t make any hole when Salter’s analysis implies it should have:
Salter’s superimposed Boeing 767-200 is too small for the hole (although he
claims it isn't), just as I later displayed in “Flight 11 Unveiled - The
X-11 Drone" which was published a few months later (red = drone wing
cuts, green = 767 wing span):
But wait, there more
"wing flexing" loonyness just over the horizon me shipmates! Salter
claims that the left wing on the UA175 aircraft is "flexing"
disproportionately to the right wing because the jet is banked in a left turn.
To put it mildly Salter’s argument is complete baloney from an aerodynamic
perspective, and I've addressed these “wing flexing” issues in the Anthony
Cotsifas section of "Ghost Gun UA175".
To prove my point look at the image below that shows the Anthony Cotsifas photograph compared to a captured field from the Ronald Pordy video taken at the same point in time.
The Boeing 767-200 in the Anthony Cotsifas photograph shows disproportionate
wing flexing in comparison to its perfectly aligned CG Boeing 767-200. Yet in
the Ronald Pordy video the UA175 aircraft isn't showing any noticeable wing
flexing at all, especially in comparison the CG model!
Salter has not studied the “Principles of Flight” and has consequently made a technical blunder of monumental proportions without even knowing it! Being paid money to edit video doesn’t qualify Salter to analyse the content of that video, and it certainly doesn’t make him a pilot or an aerodynamicist.
Eric Salter's Worst Nightmare - The Pod Illusion De-Bunked
To solve the Salter “pod illusion” theory I rigorously tested the Pavel Hlava
second hit video and the Evan Fairbanks video using a CG United Airlines Boeing
767-200 model. For the purposes of the analysis I have assumed that the
starboard engine nacelle was not casting a shadow over the starboard wing
fairing and therefore if the camera were in the correct position it would be
able to see the “specular highlights” illusion. The ”suns view” picture below
demonstrates this point. Notice that from the suns point of view the starboard
wing fairing is being exposed to sunlight:
On the Pavel Hlava video I
found no trace of “specular highlights” from the starboard wing fairing except
for an insignificant reflection off the rear of the wing fairing that was well
behind the wing and was so small it was questionable if the video camera would
be able to detect it. There was also a tiny reflection directly beneath the
trailing edge of the starboard wing. The Evan Fairbanks video did show some
reflection from the front of the fairing and the nose tip but again they were
very small and the fairing reflection was in front of the wing, not beneath it.
Even if the starboard wing fairing did reflect sunlight in accordance with the
“specular highlights” principle the pod would only be the same size as the fairing
itself and would not look like an engine strapped under the wing as seen in the
Hlava and Fairbanks videos.
The “pod” cannot be the reflection off the starboard engine nacelle in the section of fuselage beneath the starboard wing because due to the curvature of this piece of fuselage the reflection of the engine would be unnoticeably small. To demonstrate this try looking at the reflection of the same object at a fixed distance in a flat mirror and then in a curved surface, like a drinking glass for example. You will notice that the reflection of the object in the drinking glass looks relatively smaller than the reflection of the same object in the flat mirror. The more curved the surface the proportionately smaller the reflection of the object will be. The reflection can be no larger than the reflective surface itself, so if the starboard wing fairing was reflecting light from the starboard engine nacelle then that reflection would only be as big as the fairing itself, and not extending outward beyond the fairing as we see in CNN Best Angle video captures taken just prior to impact.
The other problem with Salter’s argument is that just like in the “specular reflection” geometric analysis discussed in the previous “Speculative Highlights - The Addendum A Debacle” section the camera would have to have been in the right position to receive the light from the engine nacelle reflecting off the fuselage. So in this case the argument that the “pod” is the reflection of the starboard engine nacelle in the area beneath the starboard wing or of the wing fairing itself is false.
The “pod” and “pipe” illusions should occur together because the wing fairing is elongated and in line with the surface of the fuselage section. In other words the “pod” and “pipe” illusions can only occur together because they are one and the same. Lighting conditions permitting, the “pod” should be a join between the front and rear “pipe” illusions.
”Pod sceptics” claim that the “pod” can not be real because it would have obstructed the gear bay doors which implies that the aircraft would not have been able to take off from the ground. I think it's quite plausible that the perpetrators could have used an alternative method for launching the aircraft, perhaps using some kind of disposable bogey that could be jettisoned after take off, thus eliminating the necessity for a retractable undercarriage.
One final point, when we consider the “pod” illusion we must only consider it in the context of the “pod” images being analysed. A lot of 911 sites are reproducing images of non-Boeing 767-200 series aircraft from varying angles that show the full relief of the wing fairing in advantageous lighting conditions:
Or they are simply using lighting conditions that were different to that on the
morning of 911 in an attempt to pass off the “pod” as a trick of the light.
This approach is both unrealistic and unscientific. A case in point is the
Carmen Taylor digital photograph. The viewing angle does not allow us to see
the starboard wing fairing in relief against the sky or against the starboard
wing, it only allows us to see the wing fairing inside the profile of the
airframe and therefore there is no reason for that fairing to be protruding as
much as it appears in the image.
The issues considered here
raise serious questions over the
I must point out is that it is extremely difficult to know what the precise bank angle of the UA175 aircraft was immediately prior to impact. Fortunately we do know (courtesy of NASA/JPL) that the sun was 27 degrees above the horizon and approximately 21 degrees forward of the UA175 aircraft's lateral axis. Allowing for small errors in the bank angle it may be the case that the engine nacelle was partially shading the wing fairing which would result in partial “specular highlights”, or the engine nacelle had shadowed a significant area of the starboard wing fairing which would eliminate any “specular reflections” from that area and would therefore eliminate the possibility of seeing any “pod” illusion in the Fairbanks, Hlava and CNN Best Angle videos.
For the image above I've assumed that the shadow cast by the starboard engine nacelle was just covering the starboard wing fairing and as you can see there are partial “specular highlights” as a result. Curiously the original photograph does not exhibit this important detail which implies that the sun's angle of incidence was not suitable to produce “specular highlights” from the starboard wing fairing or the photograph has been subject to manipulation in that area.
As you can see Salter’s
“pod illusion” argument is inherently flawed because if the sun were higher or
the bank angle lower then the starboard engine nacelle would cast a shadow
directly over the area where the “pod” is seen thereby making it unable to
produce “specular reflections”. If the lighting conditions and airframe
attitude were suitable then the camera would have to be in the correct position
to pick up the “specular reflections” from the wing fairing. The only good
quality picture that does this is the
The two lighting scenario's
discussed previously both result in a no “specular highlight” pod illusion for
the Pavel Hlava second hit video, the Evan Fairbanks video and the CNN Best
Angle Video. The “pod” is no trick of the light and unlikely to be an illusion
created by compression artefacts, blooming, ringing or just low resolution as
Salter might claim.
It’s the “pod” that really causes Salter’s over-stressed brain cell to break out in a sweat because at this point we have proof of the pod's existence as demonstrated in this section and only questions as to its purpose. Until there is a more compelling argument presented, it will only serve as a “nail in the coffin” for Salter’s “Analysis of Flight 175 Pod and related claims” paper and complements other evidence for a 911 “inside job” that is genuinely credible and substantive, and worthy of being presented to the public.
Condoleezza’s Pride - Loving and Hugging the Official Version of Events
Salter is deeply in love
with the "official” version of events. He postulates that Boeing 767-
200's hit both the North and
In the image pair below I've taken a field from the Fireman's Video DVD (left) and compared it to the same field with a correctly scaled computer generated American Airlines Boeing 767-200 (right) superimposed over the “Flight 11” blob. In the CG image I’ve matched the image resolution, compression artefacts, blur radius, aircraft position, aircraft attitude, aircraft altitude, meteorological conditions and camera positioning to match the “Flight 11” blob scenario from the original field:
Yes, of course the Fireman's video is showing us a large Boeing 767-200 Mr
Salter you stupid zombie! How silly of us to even begin to doubt that the small
"blob" was anything other than a large Boeing 767-200! Salter really
is a crack 911 researcher, how fortunate we are to have him around to deliver
this expert opinion as a “professional video editor with over 10 years
experience.” The aircraft seen in this video is very close in size to the
Boeing 737 series of aircraft but not the Boeing 767 series!
Salter claims that the large piece of wreckage shown in the image below is evidence for a Boeing 767-200 strike at WTC2:
The cylindrical component
shown here does not show any sign of having been blasted from the skyscraper
aloft. It looks deliberately placed; there is little sign of disturbance in the
surrounding area and there are no signs of collision with nearby structures
prior to it coming to rest. Moreover, to my knowledge, there is not one single
witness report of any kind of debris falling from either tower and landing in
the streets below, or any report of any person sustaining injuries from ejected
debris from either WTC tower. You would have thought that in the densely
populated
If this piece of wreckage had been ejected from WTC2 then we should be able to see some kind of puncture hole in WTC2’s northern façade. Bear in mind that the object is significantly wider than the man in the blue jeans standing next to it in the image above, and that the width of the exterior columns of the WTC towers were just wide enough to allow a person to lean through.
In this enhanced picture I can’t see an obvious point where the engine part
could have exited the structure because the outer columns look largely intact.
Perhaps it was a lucky shot and the section passed right between two columns.
If it hadn’t then we would have expected to see a column cut in half and bent
outwards with warping and bending of the surrounding structure, but we don’t
see this.
Salter asserts that on-site planted aircraft wreckage and museum props constitute "physical evidence" for the WTC1 strike:
In the real world there is absolutely no evidence what so ever to support the
theory that a Boeing 767-200 hit WTC1 on 911. Research and computer simulations
by structural engineers have show that the airframes of both Boeing's would
have been unable to penetrate the outer walls of the towers; they would have
crumpled up and exploded on the exterior walls. Dr Stefan Grossmann (a leading
911 researcher and practicing attorney) has conducted numerous independent
investigations of the 911attacks. In his ground breaking paper “T Minus 911
- An insiders Attack On America” Grossmann assess studies of the WTC and
Pentagon impacts, reviews historical cases of aircraft crashes, discuses the
physics of aircraft impacts against solid objects with structural engineers and
carries out some of his own research into the WTC attacks. Below are a few
extracts from “T Minus 911 - An insiders Attack on
“He told me, and I confirmed it by e-mail, that it is impossible for an airplane wing to cut through a steel pillar like at the World Trade Centre…”
“…a real aeroplanes wings will shatter, break and ignite (through the wing fuel tanks) instantly upon hitting the building…”
“…at the World Trade Centre, each plane cut through at least 5 floors, even Wierzbicki admits that the ceilings between storeys will break wings. On the video’s we don’t see this happen.”
“…Engineers have stated
and precisely simulated that the wings of an aeroplane do not damage a building
because they crumble. When aeroplanes hit solid objects such as a building,
they behave like a “sausage skin” and disintegrate upon impact (Dr. Mete Sozen,
We also have this interesting comment given by Charlie Thornton in an interview recorded the early 1980’s.
“… the largest aircraft flying today, at least commercially, the 747 fully loaded is on the order of 300 tons. So if you think about a 300 ton element crashing into a building that’s been designed to carry 13’000 tons, you can see that an aircraft crashing into the World Trade Centre would probably not do anything to the major building, it could effect localised structural elements, could knock out a column, and there could be some damage…”
You can see from these
quotes that it is a physical impossibility for a modern commercial jet airliner
to glide through the outer walls of the World Trade Centre as we see in the
WTC1 and WTC2 impact videos.
I mailed Salter the link
for “T Minus 911 - An insiders Attack on
"Tellingly, he fails to quote these sections and doesn't even provide an online link to the studies..."
Did Salter visit the link I mailed him or did he know in advance what he was going find there? Did he visit the link and not like what he saw? Salter claims to be a 911 researcher, has he not researched the physics of aircraft impacts into buildings? If he didn't research the physics of aircraft impacts into buildings then what kind of a researcher is he and of what value is his work to the 911 truth movement?
I omitted these sections of text from "Ghost Gun UA175" largely because the paper is an analysis of UA175 imagery and not a structural analysis of the WTC impacts. I provided a brief synopsis of the impact physics to point out that Boeing 767's couldn't have caused the damage inflicted on the WTC towers as an introduction to the paper to allow the reader to know that the WTC attacks were essentially a hoax even before analysing the photographs and videos.
The idea that the weapon of choice for the WTC attacks were Boeing 767-200’s is ludicrous because the aircrafts airframe would have been smashed to pieces on impact and the fuel ignited outside the towers façade thereby depriving the Perpetrators of the "burning jet fuel brought down the towers" excuse. The “767 impacts at the WTC” theory is not scientifically supported and any serious 911 researcher worth their salt should vigorously reject this crackpot notion if they haven't already done so, as it a blatant departure from the truth and a sign of sloppy research.
It is now believed among many genuine 911 researchers that the UA175 impact videos are either all fakes or that a significant proportion of these videos and stills are fakes. Salter acknowledges this, but tries to play down the extent of the issue, perhaps because he knows the ramifications and their effect on his written works:
"Icke occasionally speculates that some of the images may be fraudulent. I would agree that it is very possible that some images are not authentic. I would speculate further that the reason for fraudulent images could be to encourage wild goose chases into illogical and discrediting theories about the planes that hit the WTC. "
You would have thought that a "dedicated 911 researcher" like Salter with “over 10 years of experience as a professional video editor” would have jumped at the opportunity to expose the fraudulent nature of the UA175 videos and stills and thereby help expose the Perpetrators. But he seems strangely reticent to do so. Why would this be? Is he trying to brainwash his readers? Salter may BELIEVE that the WTC towers were hit by commercial jets but key players in the 911 Truth movement like Dr Stefan Grossmann and Gerard Holmgren can PROVE that they were not. If Salter genuinely believes that the WTC towers were hit by commercial jets on 911 then he is suffering from either a painfully low IQ or is in a huge state of denial. In either of these conditions he is of little benefit to the 911 Truth movement. Might it be that Salter is in some way involved with the Perpetrators? Perhaps he is a deliberately placed "pet disinformation poodle" sent to poison the 911 Truth movement:
The Rise of the Disinformation Machine
Salter's research (if you can call it that) is supported and endorsed by those known as the “false opposition”. “Pod sceptics” lap up his deliberate disinfo theory for the “pod illusion” which I debunked in "Ghost Gun UA175", something Salter remains very quiet about even though it destroys the core of his argument about the UA175 aircraft. The very fact that Salter is being held up like a trophy with disinformation agents should be a good enough sign to show us where his true loyalties lie. Salter remarks on the possibility of plane substitution in his papers as being likely and in a recent e-mail to me Salter stated that:
“I still believe that there could have been plane substitutions. If anyone has any quality articles to write on this subject, like Woody Box has done, I look forward to reading them…”
But in a video called "Not In Plane Site" which was a feeble critique of Dave von Kleist’s "In Plane Site” bearing all the hallmarks of Salter’s brainless ramblings and details of the host site www.questionsquestions.net he claims the following:
“The assertion that the planes that struck the towers in New York were not American 11 and United 175 directly contradicts physical evidence recovered at the site, as the report from Naples show a piece of the American Airlines plane recovered from Ground Zero…if you look at the paint it is consistent with the blue surrounding the windows of American Flight 11…”
Why is Salter putting out a
video on the internet telling us that “the report from
Thanks to the work of genuine 911 researcher Gerard Holmgren we know that “Flight 11” never existed because it was reported cancelled in the FAA databases and thanks to the work of other dedicated 911 researchers we know that the aircraft seen in the Fireman’s video is far too small to be a Boeing 767-200. We also know that the colour of the explosion seen coming out of the WTC1 tower after impact is not consistent with a jet fuel explosion and that a real Boeing 767-200 wouldn’t not have been able to create the gash we see on the North face of WTC1. In essence there isn’t a shred of evidence to support the theory that WTC1 was hit by a Boeing 767-200 on the morning of 911.
As a result of watching “Not
in Plane Site” I’ve noticed that Salter is not only an ace video editor, an
aerodynamicist, a crack pilot and a “911 know it all”, he’s now an air crash
investigator and a Boeing 767-200 engineer all rolled into one! The video from
Eric Salter Meets His Nemesis – Gerard Holmgren
Prior to writing his debut 911 paper “The WTC Impacts: 767s or ‘Whatzits’?” Salter had been locked in fierce combat with a genuine 911 researcher by the name of Gerard Holmgren. It's quite clear from Holmgren's later publication "The Salter Debates" that Salter didn't have the necessary integrity and objectivity to be a productive 911 researcher. By reading "The Salter Debates" we can see that Salter started of with his own conclusions about what happened on 911 based on the official version of events additionally using his own speculation and guesswork. He then tried to make the video evidence of the WTC strikes fit his assertions while being helped along with photographs of planted aircraft wreckage at the crime scene with his over inflated self confidence and arrogance to plug the gaps in his defective reasoning.
The main thrust of the Salter's argument as read from “The Salter Debates” is that the small "blob" in the Fireman's video is a Boeing 767-200. Holmgren’s analyses Salter's arguments and reduces them to the following statements (edited by myself from Holmgren's original writings) which clearly defines the Eric Salter "Loonyland" reasoning style:
"We can’t see a
767 in the video which proves that one is there, because we wouldn’t expect to
be able to see it. Even though we can’t see a plane, it’s reasonable to assume
that it's there, and unreasonable to assume that it isn’t.
We can precisely identify the object as
having a wingspan of approximately 160 ft, by the things which might be the
wings or might be the engines. The fact that we can’t tell whether it’s a wing
or engine, proves that it must be one of them or both.
The fact that we can’t find any witnesses apparently proves that there are thousands. It seems that it’s reasonable to assume that they exist and unreasonable to assume that the inability to find any means that they don’t.
We have a hole in the building which is interchangeably the exact shape of the Loonyland plane or not the exact shape of the Loonyland plane, which both serve to prove that it was the Loonyland plane which we reasonably assume to have been there.
After all it’s reasonable to assume it’s a 767 and unreasonable to assume its not, which really clinches the argument."
As a result of being
publicly ripped a new arsehole by Holmgren, Salter decided to attack Holmgren
in his forthcoming paper “The WTC Impacts: 767s or ‘Whatzits’?” thereby
showing that he had learned nothing from his encounter. Having read Salter's
articles I think it’s safe to say that anyone with an IQ of over 100 would have
no trouble in seeing that they are complete garbage that would only be of
interest to the 911 disinformation enthusiasts who lap up Salter’s
anti-intellectual nonsense like a thirsty hyenas and then spread it around the rest
of the pack like rabies.
After reading “The WTC Impacts: 767s or ‘Whatzits’?” I penned my rebuttal "Was “Flight 11” A 767?" and Salter responded to this article over half a year later with “Physical evidence for “Flight 11” plane substitution: 767 or ‘X-11’?” As you can imagine it wasn't worth the wait and I certainly hadn’t been holding my breath!
You have to wonder what goes on in Salter’s mind when he presents these kinds of arguments to other 911 researchers. Perhaps we should entertain the idea that he has some kind of mental problem that is interfering with his powers of judgement and compromising his sanity.
The Madness of King Eric
One of the most revealing features of Eric Salter is his innate ability to contradict himself without being aware of it. In the image set below: Left – Salter’s identification of “Flight 11’s” longitudinal axis (red line from nose tip to tail) in relation to the left edge of the tower (black line shows top of WTC1’s east side): Middle – NIST (National Institute of Standard and Technology) WTC1 impact simulation: Right – 911 Commission computer simulation of the last moments of “Flight 11” – presumably sourced from RADAR data.
You’ll notice that Salter’s red line is at a different angle to the black
horizontal line; this indicates that “Flight 11” was pitched down at the time
of impact by an angle of about 35 degrees. It therefore follows that “Flight
11” was in a descent at a similar angle to the pitch angle identified by
Salter. The NIST simulation agrees with Salter’s analysis although the pitch
angle is significantly shallower than Salter’s at 6 degrees and the 911
Commission graphic confirms a sharp but undetermined rate of descent. Finally
we have the rather smooth and serious engineer Najib Abboud from Weidlinger
Associates INC who produces a pitch angle of 4.3 degrees:
I’m a bit sceptical of the official figures produced by Weidlinger Associates
and NIST, they seem very conservative, and similarly my research strongly
suggests that “Flight 11” approached WTC1 from the right of centre, not from
the left as official sources indicate. The “Flight 11” aircrafts descent path
as seen in the Fireman’s video has been calculated by Professor Kee Dewdney
from physics911.org at approximately 15 degrees and my own calculations back
this up with a pitch angle of 15 degrees and a glide path in the region of 15
degrees. I suspect that my own calculations and Professor Dewdney’s are much
more accurate than any official estimate which makes Salter’s visual estimate
of 35 degrees pitch look a excessive. Suffice to say that for a Boeing 767-200
flying downward on a 15 degree descent path close to 500mph (outside it’s
flight envelope at sea level) into a skyscraper would safely constitute “dive
bombing” as Holmgren puts it in the following quote from Salter’s laughable
debut paper “The WTC Impacts: 767s or ‘Whatzits’?”.
"Holmgren agrees that what hit the north tower was dive bombing instead of moving horizontally as the official story claims. This is wrong and there are three proofs for this. First, the path of the plane is parallel to the left edge of the tower, suggesting that it is moving horizontally…”
Not only does Salter obviously have no idea what the official estimates of “Flight 11’s” pitch angle or descent path are, he’s managed to contradict himself by using a graphic indicating that “Flight 11” was pitched down at an angle of 35 degrees prior to impact and then making the statement that it was flying horizontal at the moment of impact, which is an aerodynamic impossibility under the circumstances. Incidentally, Salter hates serious researchers like Professor Dewdney who produce quality research that happens to contradict Salter’s baseless assumptions. Consider this quote from “Physical Evidence for Flight 11 plane substitution: 767 or ‘X-11’?”
“For the first two reasons I mentioned above, neither Icke’s or Dewdney’s measurements of the planes pitch are reliable.”
How fortunate we are to have an expert like Salter on the case! Some time ago I e-mailed Salter the 911 Commission graphic showing the “Flight 11” descent trajectory but he never responded. I wonder what the explanation was for his silence and why he never amended his “The WTC Impacts: 767s or ‘Whatzits’?” paper? Was Salter in a normal state of mind when he wrote “The WTC Impacts: 767s or ‘Whatzits’?”? Does Salter have a latent subliminal urge for public self-humiliation? Is this conscious negligence with purpose? Is Salter barking mad?
Eric v Brian – One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Salter seems to come in two flavours, one called “Eric” and one called “Brian”. Some 911 researchers have wondered if the “Eric” variant is the same as the “Brain” variant. It is my personal belief that “Brian” is “Eric’s” fantasy. Brian has a kind of multiple personality condition much like the one suffered by Golum from “The Lord Of The Rings” where two personalities occupy the same physical body yet they are both aware of each others presence inside that body and can converse with each other:
The Psychopaths Respond
Since posting this article Salter, Hungerford and Omholt have responded. Please note that these audio recordings may take some time to load into your browser.
Click here to listen to Salter’s response
Click here to listen to Hungerford’s response
Click here to Rolf Omholt’s response.
Salter’s response is perfectly understandable. It would seem that Hungerford had taken one too many magic mushrooms the night before and was incapable of commenting in any understandable manner. Rolf Omholt certainly isn't smurfing himself a happy grin and is looking a shade embarrassed to say the least, as for the reason, I couldn’t say.
Conclusion
I'm alarmed at the current situation. Many of the most important 911 disinformation sites rely on Salter’s bogus analyses of the WTC aircraft anomalies for support. If he persists in pushing his baseless theories, large portions of the 911 truth movement stand to be tainted through this association. The debunkers would approach it like this: "Within the community of dedicated 911 researchers, broad support is given to a mentally deficient video editor who believes that a Boeing 767 can be flown horizontally at 500mph with the nose pitched down at 35 degrees." Guilt by association may not be an honourable debating tactic, but the other side is anything but honourable. It's clear that Salter will never abandon his ideological imperative for, and personal attachment to, finding nothing amiss with the absence of Boeing 767-200’s that we were told hit the WTC towers on 911.
Of course the real question is, “What good reason is there to suspect that the strikes at WTC were 767’s?” What good reason is there to risk looking like fools or getting trapped in an unresolvable, time wasting debate? It is up to the 767 advocates to demonstrate that this aspect of the official story is false and they haven't. Salter’s analysis of the “blob” seen in the Naudet video is unreliable, his interpretation of the video record is either subjective or erroneous, and the rest of his arguments are a series of personal opinions or speculations that don't contribute any conclusive evidence for the 767’s case.
The question of plane substitution is a valid one, but Salter’s dismissal of the matter, whether deliberate or not is disinformation. It muddies the waters, poisons the atmosphere and wastes the time and energy of dedicated researchers like Holmgren and Webfairy. The current state of the evidence doesn't justify the kind of conclusions Salter reaches, let alone the intolerant attacks on anyone who doesn't question this part of the official story. The WTC 767 plane theories are a danger to the 911 truth movement and should be vigorously rejected.
Salter’s analysis throughout is appalling, he is illogical, lazy, vague and will not learn from other 911 researchers. In essence what we have here is the totally unscientific cherry picking of evidence and an inferior analysis based on that evidence. It’s not only a disgrace and an insult to genuine 911 researchers, in fact it’s almost outright fraud. Salter is out to score cheap points and is making a fool of himself in the process. He is either very stupid, a Manchurian Candidate or a third rate disinformation artist who will use any cheap trick to fool his audience into believing the official version of events, or to turn them away from the work of legitimate and unbiased 911 researchers. Consequently any of Salter’s written or visual works should be treated no differently from the brown material that issues under pressure from the back of a horse.
